Honing machine



Nov. 25, 1941. G. F. JOHNSON 2,264,179'

HONING MACHINE Filed Sept. '25, 1959 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 ---llillil@IK Nov. 25, 1941. G..F. JoHNsoN HONING MACHINE Filed Sept. 25, 1959 I 2 Sheets-Sheeil 2 attorneys Patented Nov. 25, 1941 Home. MACHINE Glen F. Johnson, Detroit, Mich., assignor to Bower Roller Bearing Company, Detroit, Mich., a corporation of Michigan Application September 25, 1939, Serial No. 296,386

7 Claims.

This invention relates, in general, to honing machines and, in particular, to a new and improved work supporting structure therefor.

One of the objects of this invention is to provide a new and improved structure for supporting a work piece to be honed whereby the honing of said piece may be more eficiently and properly performed than heretofore.

Another object is to provide a new and improved chuckless or centerless work supporting structure for a honing machine whereby the work piece to be honed is positively rotated immediately upon its placement into honing position and during the honing thereof so as to reduce speed reduction in said piece and thereby improve the effectiveness of the honing operation and the nish of the surface honed.

Another object is to provide a honing machine with a new and improved chuckless or centerless work supporting structure which rotatably supports the work piece to be honed and in which the rotation of said piece is immediately eiectuated upon the insertion thereof into honing position and maintained substantially constant thereafter in order to oppose the retarding effect of the tool and improve the honing eifectiveness thereof.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will become readily apparent from a reference to the following specification taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which there are two (2) sheets and wherein:

Figure 1 is a side elevation of the machine and showing the work piece and tool in their respective honing positions;

Figs. 2 and 3 are end elevational views, partly in section, of the front and rear ends, respectively, of the work supporting structure of the machine shown in Fig. 1;

Fig. 4 is a section taken along the lines 4 4 in Fig. 2;

Fig. 5 is a front elevational View of the two work supporting rollers of Fig. 2 shown isolated from the rest of the machine and with one of the work pieces in place thereon for being rotatably driven thereby;

Fig. 6 is a plan view of the arrangement shown in Fig. 5 with the additional showing, in dotted lines, of the backing member in position with respect thereto; and

Fig. 7 is an end view, in elevation, of the arrangement shown in Fig. 5 and looking from right to left along the line interconnecting the centers of the work piece 68 and the right hand roller 58 therein.

The honing machine shown in Fig. 1 comprises, in general, two main sections, one of which being the section for movably carrying the tool, and the other of which being the section for movably carrying the work, the work being either a cup member or a cone member for a. roller bearing assembly and each having an annular raceway surface to be honed by said tool. Since the general and main object of the machine in its entirety is to true and nish the raceway so as to meet precise and accurate standards therefor, it is essential that the work be rotatable at a high speed about its axis of rotation and that the tool be reciprocable, also at a high speed and preferably non-rotatably, over said raceway. Also, the reciprocating tool should be movable from a position axially spaced from the rotating work into a position radially spaced from the raceway, before it is actually brought into honing engagement with said raceway, and then, after honing, said tool should be movable back into said radiallyspaced position Abefore the return to said axially spaced position is begun. Since a machine for so supporting the Work and tool is clearly set forth and disclosed in my co-pending application, Serial No. 273,308, led May 12, 1939, and entitled Method of and apparatus for honing roller bearing cup members, only those elements thereof which are essential to the disclosure, work ability and application of the present invention are shown in the gures.

The tool and work carrying sections of the machine shown partially in Fig. 1 are generally indicated at I 0 and I2, respectively, and are mounted on a common base I4, said section I0 being reciprocably carried by said base by means of guides /I6, whereby the tool and its carrier are unitarily guided in movement, in substantially an axial direction, toward and from the wor and said section I2 being pivotally carried by said base by means of pins I8 and held in adjusted position by means of locks 20 and slots 22, whereby the work is adjustably positioned to align its raceway with the tool.

In general, the tool carrying section I 0 comprises a carriage 24 and a carrier 26, said carriage being reciprocably supported by means of the base I4 and guides I6 for movement toward and away from the work carrying section I2 relatively to said base, and said carrier being movable with said carriage'and pivotally supported thereto by means of a pin 28 for movement about said pin toward said carriage under the influence of a spring 30 and away from said carriage about said pin ycam follower'82 actuated by one shown in Fig. 1, the

under the influence of a shown) housed in 'said base and disclosed and discussed in the aforementioned application. The section I8 is movable along the guides I8 relatively to the base I4 and section I2 under the influence of another cam follower 84 actuated by another of the cams (not shown) housed in said base and also disclosed and discussed in the aforementioned application. In short, the carriage 24 and carrier 28 are in fully retracted positions with respect to the work carrying section I2 and said carrier is in fully raised position with respect to said carriage, when said carriage and said carrier are in their normal positions, the cam followers 34 and 22 and their cams being so designed and adjusted therefor;'

to position the tool for honing, the follower 84 is caused to move the carriage 24 and upraised carrier 28 so that the tool is directly above the raceway to be honed thereby, whereupon the follower 32 is caused to lower said carrier relatively to said carriage until the tool is in actual contact with the raceway; after honing, the follower 82 is caused to act first, said carrier and tool being raised, and then the follower 34 is caused to return the carriage and raised carrier to their normal positions. The carrier 28 is hollow, carrying therewithin a tool carrier 88 to the outer and front end of which there is fixed a honing tool 38. As described in the aforementioned application, and as diagrammatically tool carrier 38 has integral portions 48 in driven engagementl with an eccentric 42 consisting of an integral part of a shaft 44 driven by a motor 48 carried on the carrier 26, whereby said carrier 88 and tool 38 are caused to reciprocate at a high speed relatively to said carrier 28 and its carriage 24.

In general, the work carrying section I2 comprises a casing 48 which is pivoted, by means of the pins I8, to the base I4 and held in any position of adjustment by means of the locks 28 and slots 22. Casing 48 carries internally a' block 58 which serves as a bearing support for a trio of shafts 52, 54 and 58 which protrude from said casing at both the front and rear ends thereof, said front end of said casing being considered that end which is adjacent the tool end of the tool carrying section I8. Onthe front end of each of the shafts 52 and 84 there is mounted for rotation therewith a roller 88, and on the front end of the shaft 88 there is mounted for rotation therewith an annular, cup-shaped backing member 88. Also, on the rear end tion therewith a pulley 82 by which pulleys said shafts- 52 and 54 and the rollers 88 are rotated unitarily and uni-directionally through the agency of a belt 84 in driven the shaft of a motor 88 carried on the and in driving engagement with said pulleys 82.

The rollers 88 and backing member 88 cooperate to provide a purely external support and rotating drive for a work piece, illustrated in the figures in the form of a roller bearing cup member 88, and said rollers and backing member are, therefore, so spaced and so related to each other that the tapered raceway 18 of said member 88 passes at a high speed of rotation the line of travel assumed by the tool 88 when the latter is in honing position. In other words. the axes of the rollers 88 and backing member 88 are tilted with respect to the axis of travel of the tool 88 so that said rollers and backing member support of the cams (not.

of each of ythe shafts 52 and 84 there is mounted for rotaengagement with casing 48` the work 88 from below and behind, respectively, at a position where the raceway 18 passes said tool when the latter is reciprocating and in its lowered position. Due to sole reliance for support of the work piece 88 beinsr placed on the rollers 88 and backing member 88, the shafts 82 and 84 carrying said rollers are preferably out of parallelism a slight degree so that their rotation will establish, somewhat, a wiping action along the outer surface of said work piece in the directionof said backing member,"such arrangement being shown in Figs. 5, 6 and 'I and having been fully disclosed and explained in the aforementioned application. It has been found that this angularity between the roller shafts 82 and 84, together with a slight speed differential therebetween caused either intentionally or by the inevitable slip between the pulleys 82 and belt 84, the downward pressure exerted by the tool 88 against the raceway 10, and the wedge-shaped areas between said tool and the rollers 88 in which the work piece 88 must reside, all combine effectively to hold said work piece in place in opposition to the tendency of said tool, during its reciprocation over said raceway, to draw said work piece away from the backing member 88.

The roller shaft 82, near its rear end and ahead of the pulley 82 thereon, has a pinion 12 keyed thereto for rotation therewith, and said pinion is in constant positive driving mesh with a gear 14 keyed to the rear end of the backing member shaft 58 for rotation therewith. So, when one of the work pieces 88 drops from the feed chamber 18 therefor onto the rollers 58 and against the backing member 80, while the tool 88 is in its retracted position, said work piece is immediately rotated about its axis of rotation by said rollers and backing member at substantially the same speed thereas. In other words, no time is lost nor effort wasted in getting the work up to the speed necessary for efficient honing thereof by the time the followers 84 and 82 move the tool into honing position on the raceway, and little or no work speed is lost during such honing because the substantially positive driving of said work by the rollers 88 and backing member 88 ineffectuates the retarding nature of the tool pressure and friction.

The proper feeding of the work pieces into their honing positions is clearly set forth and described in the aforementioned application, so that it is by a cam (not shown) housed within the vbase v I4. The normal position of the tripper 18 is that whereat said tripper overlies the forwardmost work piece 88 in the feeder 18, thus preventing said work piece from leaving said feeder, and this position is occupied by said tripper at times when a work piece is being honed by the tool 88, when the honed work piece is being ejected from the rollers 88 and backing member 88, and after a new piece has left said feeder and arranged itself on said rollers against said backing member. During this normal position of the tripper 18, the tool 88 ismoved from its retracted position into honing engagement with the work and then returned to said position. 'I'he actuating mechanism 88 for the tripper 18 moves said tripper from its normal position into 16, but on the opposite side of the axis of the backing member shaft 56, there is supported by the casing 48 a discharge chamber or trough 82 which is operable for receiving the honed work pieces from the rollers 58 and backing member 60 and directing same to a selected position remote therefrom. A kicker 84, normally residing below the work piece 88 on the rollers 58 and supported on a shaft 86 freely carried within the roller shaft 52, is actuated at the proper times by means of an actuating mechanism, generally indicated at 88, to kick said work piece from said rollers, after same has been honed, into the trough 82 and then return to its normal position to permit the introduction of another a single direction, a third shaft rotatably carrying a backing member thereon engageable with the work piece to limit movement thereof along the central axis, and means interconnecting said third shaft and at least one of said pair of shafts for rotating said member and said third shaft in a direction opposite that of said rollers and said pair of shafts.

4. A supporting structure for a work piece having an annular work surface and comprising, a plurality of rollers cooperable with the work piece to support the latter for rotation about an axis coincident with the central axis of the work surwork piece from the trough 'I6 onto said rollers.

The relationship between the mechanisms 88 and 80 is clearly brought out and discussed in the aforementioned co-pending application and does not need further discussion here. It is suillce to say that these two mechanisms operate with the proper timing so that the tripper 18 and kicker' 84 properly perform to feed the machine with work pieces to be honed and to discharge the honed work pieces from the machine.

Although the invention has been described with some detail it is not intended that such description is to be definitive of the limits of the inventive idea. The right is reserved to make such changes in the details of construction and arrangement'of parts as will come within the purview of the attached claims.

What I claim is:

1. A supporting structure for a work piece having an annular work surface and comprising, a

pair of rollers cooperable with the work piece to support the latter for rotation about an axis coincident with the central axis of the work surface, means for simultaneously rotating'said rollers uni-directionally, a backing member engageable with the work piece to limit movement thereof along the central axis, and means operable responsive to said rst means and operatively connected to said member for rotating said member in a direction opposite that of said rollers.

2. A supporting structure for a work piece having an annular work surface and comprising, a pair of rollers cooperable with the work piece to support the latter for rotation about an axis coincident with the central axis of the work surface, means for rotating saidrollers in a single direction, a backing member engageable with the work piece to limit movement thereof along the central axis, and means driven by one of said face, means for rotating one of said rollers in a predetermined direction, a backing member operable for limiting movement of the work piece along the central axis, driving means supported for rotation with said one roller in said predetermined'dlrection, and driven means in driven connection with said driving means and in driving connection with said backing member for rotating the latter in a direction counter to` said predetermined direction.

5. A supporting structure for a work piece having an annular work surface and comprising, a pair of spaced shafts rotatably carrying rollers thereon cooperable with the work piece to support the latter for rotation about an axis coincident with the central axis of the work. surface, means for rotating one of said Shafts and its respective roller in a predetermined direction, a

. third shaft rotatably carrying a backing member rollers in a direction opposite that of said roller for rotating said memberin a similar direction.

3. A supporting structure for a work piece having an annular work surface and comprising, a pair of spaced shafts rotatably carrying rollers thereon cooperable with the work piece to support the latter for rotation about an axis coincidentwith the central axis of the work surface.

means for rotating said shafts and said rollers in thereon engageable with the work piece to limit movement thereof along the central axis, driving means carried on said one shaft for rotation therewith in said predetermined direction, and driven means on said third shaft in driven connection with said' driving means for driving said third shaft and said backing member in a direction counter to said predetermined direction.

6. A supporting structure for a Work piece having an annular work surface and comprising, a pair of rollers cooperable with the work piece to support the latter for rotation about an axis coincident with the central axis of the work surface, means for rotating said rollers in a single direction, a backing member engageable with the work piece to limit movement thereof along the central axispand means driven by one of said rollers in a direction opposite that of said roller and at the same speed thereof for rotating said member in a similar direction and at said speed.

'7. A supporting structure for a work piece having an annular work surface and comprising, a pair of spaced shafts rotatably carrying rollers thereon cooperablewith the work piece to support the latter for rotation about an axis coincident with the central axis of the work surface, means `for rotating said shafts and said rollers in a single direction, a third shaft rotatably carrying a backing member thereon engageable with 4the work pieceto limit movement thereof along the central axis, and means interconnecting said third shaft and at least one of said pair of shafts and rotated at the same speed thereof a direction opposite that of said rollers and said pair of shafts and at said speed.

GLEN F. J OBNSON. 

